Firefighters’ pay again an issue for City Council

The dispute among City Council members over fire department staffing and overtime surfaced again at Monday’s meeting — and this time, flooded basements were added to the discussion.

At the close of the meeting, Councilman Mike Yaklich noted that the city has several million dollars’ worth of sanitary and storm sewer projects in its long-range plans. If carried out, Yaklich said, these projects might prevent some of the basement flooding that occurred after last week’s heavy rains.

The city doesn’t have the money available to do all the projects, Yaklich said, and he added that he feels it would be “very irresponsible” of the council to divert money from infrastructure work to other city expenses.

Yaklich has supported a proposal by City Manager Kip Spear to allow four-man, rather than five-man shifts on the fire department, saving $90,000 a year on overtime.

Councilman Duane Gillespie, a fire captain, has opposed Spear’s plan. Monday he inferred that Yaklich was referring to fire department overtime when he referred to other city expenses.

Gillespie said he too had flooding on his property, but he didn’t think cutting fire department overtime or a code enforcement officer in the police department would have solved his problems.

Yaklich said at a council budget meeting last week that Kewanee has averaged just 12 structure fires a year recently. While that might not sound like much, Gillespie said, it is very significant to the victims of those fires.

Yaklich asked how the fire department handles it when there are simultaneous fire and ambulance calls. Gillespie said a Kewanee Community Fire Department firefighter joins the city firefighters, and the two men on the ambulance go to the fire as soon as they’re finished with the run.

“That’s very good,” Yaklich said. “So there are other options. I’m just saying we should look at other options.”

Also Monday, the council spent more than expected on a project at the transfer station, and approved less than expected for summer street work.

The council awarded the contract for a new concrete floor on the upper floor of the transfer station to Forristall Concrete Co. of Princeton for $25,069. That’s higher than City Engineer Steve Bruner’s estimate of $20,000, but Spear said Bruner feels re-bidding the job probably wouldn’t produce lower bids.

Another Princeton firm, Advanced Asphalt, won the bid for the city’s summer street maintenance program. Their bid of $318,972 was the lowest of three the city received, and about $41,000 less than Bruner’s estimate for the summer work.